Automotive

Jaguar & Shell’s New In-Car Payment System May Be About Something More

Jaguar and oil giant Shell have teamed up to create a novel, in-car payment system. And while this may be gilding the lily and solving a problem already taken care of, it could point to some interesting advancements ahead.

Okay, briefly, what Jag and Shell have cooked up here is an in-car payment system so you can buy gas easier. Effectively, it’s a software upgrade that’s integrated into the car’s infotainment system, and accessible via the large central touch screen.

I’ll get into the minutia of how all this works (and it actually is rather interesting) but for the moment, let me ask this question: Why?

Data Factors

Why go to all this time and trouble to come up with a gas-buying app when you can already basically do that with Apple Pay or Android Pay or PayPal or someone like that? Why not, if your Jaguar, just partner with one of these tech companies, rather than rolling your own (as the saying goes)?

Near as I can tell, the reasons for taking this harder route are two-fold. One, you can pull that sweet, sweet demographic data that’s driving a lot of our digital economy these days on your own, and the data will be much more pure and need less refinement. Meaning you can slice and dice a certain portion of your customer behavior and drive future decisions off that. Two, you can, potentially, push customers to use given products and services. In this case, you could, hypothetically, impel them into using Shell products more and more.

Essentially what Jaguar and Shell are up to is this: Instead of using a credit card at the pump, or, even more Neanderthal-esque cash, you can simply drive up to the pump at a Shell station and, via the touchscreen, select how much fuel you want and then securely pay using PayPal or Apple Pay. Jaguar will add Android Pay later this year.

Once you’re finished, a receipt will pop up on the touchscreen, and an electronic version is sent from the pump to your email so you can add it to your expense account and things along those lines for business travel. You might think that Jaguar/Shell just cribbed their own version of digital pay software, or coded out their own, but what they ended up doing is actually a little more complex and clever than that.

Convenience Factors

Contrasting against the current phone-based payment methods, Shell and Jaguar have created a simple but secure system that uses geolocation technology and a cloud-based, pre-payment authorization through PayPal or Apple Pay. Basically you transfer a bunch of cash into the account of your choice (PayPal or Apple Pay for the moment) and when you roll into a Shell station, the geolocation tech knows you’re there, the software connects all the dots, and you’re good to go.

“Making a payment directly from a car’s touchscreen will make refueling quicker and easier,” said Peter Virk, Jaguar Land Rover’s Director of Connected Car and Future Technology. “With this new system you can choose any pump at the gas station and pay for the fuel even if you’ve forgotten your wallet or can’t find your credit or debit card.”

Yes, but that still doesn’t give any real reason as to why this is better than using PayPal or Apple Pay or Android Pay via your phone. Sure, there’s the “forgotten your wallet or can’t find your credit or debit card” rational, but to me, it still seems like the real rationales are ones of data control, data mining, and driving product purchase behavior.

At first, this new system be available in the 2018 Jaguar XE, XF, and F-PACE models launching in the U.K., but other markets are expected to follow. Jaguar also plans to have the system included throughout their line up, and also in corporate sibling Range Rover as well. Jaguar hopes to expand the system to include parking and drive-through restaurants, which is both cool and practical.

Tony Borroz has spent his entire life racing antique and sports cars. He means well, even if he has a bias towards lighter, agile cars rather than big engine muscle cars or family sedans.

Photos & Source: Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC

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2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack SE TSI 4Motion Review

Americans aren’t particularly fond of wagons, but Volkswagen hopes to change a few people’s minds with their new Golf Alltrack wagon. It comes with all-wheel drive, and it’s a vehicle for adventure seekers. Volkswagen wants to capitalize on young urban-adventurers who will use its off-pavement abilities for weekend excursions to get away from civilization.

We recently took it through the high country of Colorado, the perfect place to test the all-wheel drive wagon. How did the 2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack SE TSI 4Motion model hold up?

What’s New

The 2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack is an all-new model that’s based on the pavement-oriented Golf SportWagen. It’s establishing a new identity and comes fitted with lower-body cladding, fog lamps, a honeycomb grille, and unique bumpers to set it apart from its stablemate. It also gets a raised suspension and underbody protection.

Features and Options

The 2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack SE TSI 4Motion ($30,530) comes standard with all-wheel drive and body cladding for those weekend adventures. Inside, it comes with heated front seats, leatherette seating surfaces, a rearview camera, a Fender premium sound system, and keyless entry/start. Outside it comes with a power sunroof, rain-sensing wipers, heated washer nozzles, heated side mirrors, and roof rails.

The Driver Assist package ($845) brings adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, and even a Park Pilot self-parking system. The 6-speed DSG automatic transmission is offered at no charge. Total MSRP including destination: $32,195.

Interior Highlights

The cabin is airy and spacious up front and there’s good visibility from the driver’s seat. Taller drivers won’t have a problem finding a comfortable position even with the manual adjustments. The black leatherette material is comfortable and the front seats are especially good for longer trips. They didn’t leave us tired after a trip through the mountains this week.

As is typical for Volkswagen, everything seems nicely put together, and the fit and finish is what you’d expect for this price point. There’s some soft-touch material up front, but in the back there’s more hard surfaces which is likely by design. These surfaces make it easier to clean up the sand after a trip to the beach or mud after a mountain bike ride.

Out back, rear occupants won’t have as much room as the front, but getting in and out of the back seat isn’t a chore like some vehicles. Rear seat space is not as good as the Alltrack’s main completion, the Subaru Outback. Cargo space is also less than Outback with 30.4 cubic feet behind the seat, and 66.5 with the seat backs folded. Outback is 35.5 cubic feet (73.3 cubic feet with the rear seats folded) by comparison. The Alltrack makes it easy to fold the rear seatbacks flat while you’re loading cargo, however, and it offers up a handy two-position sliding cargo cover.

Engine & Fuel Mileage Specs

The 2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack is powered by a turbocharged, 1.8-liter direct-injected four-cylinder engine that develops 170 horsepower and 199 lb-ft. of torque. It comes with VW’s 4Motion all-wheel drive, and it’s mated to a 6-speed dual-clutch DSG automatic transmission.

EPA fuel-mileage estimates are 22/30 city/highway and 25 combined mpg.

Driving Dynamics

The first thing we noticed after getting underway is the Alltrack’s excellent visibility in all directions due to plentiful glass. On the road, the 1.8-liter turbo engine is peppy enough for most driving situations. The turbo helped in the rarefied air in Colorado’s high country. We pushed the engine hard up I-70 for a good test and it performed well.

In the tight mountain corners, the wagon does tend to lean a bit due to the higher ride height. It’s the price you pay for it’s off-road abilities. Overall, the Alltrack offers solid handling and a fairly engaging driving experience. In the city, the wagon is easy to maneuver in tight spaces due to its compact size.

The 6-speed dual-clutch DSG automatic transmission can feel sluggish from a stop, but after we were underway, the shifts were smooth and quick. The new wagon offers an Off-Road Mode and with 6.7 inches of ground clearance, there is enough for most excursions, but the Subaru Outback still rules the segment with 8.7 inches of clearance. The Alltrack does come with underbody protection to keep you from destroying the oil pan, however.

There’s likely enough off-road capability for the majority of weekend warriors.

Conclusion

The 2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack offers a lot of flexibility for city commuting and weekend adventures. It offers all-wheel drive, a raised suspension, and underbody protection for those wanting to get away from civilization. We thought it was a compelling alternative to the crowded crossover segment.

Denis Flierl has invested over 25 years in the automotive industry in a variety of roles. Follow his work on Twitter: @CarReviewGuy

2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack Gallery

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2017 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack Official Site

Photos: Volkswagen of America, Inc

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Automoblog Book Garage: Shelby Cobra Fifty Years

What now seems like many moons ago, I knew a beautiful girl who loved the Ford Mustang, especially the Shelby. We would often go back and forth, pondering which Mustang models we liked best. Sometimes we would text back and forth during the day, trying to stump each other with Mustang trivia.

She always got the best of me, although I will never admit it.

Fond Memories & Big Dreams

When we launched Book Garage last year with Motorbooks, I wanted the books we feature to bring back fond memories for those who flipped through the pages. Cars are like that, you know. They have an ability to bring our most cherished times to the forefront, and certinately, a Shelby Mustang is no exception.

In the early 1960s, Carroll Shelby was a Texas chicken farmer attending to his daily chores. At first glance, it may not seem like automobiles of any kind were in his future, yet Shelby had a vision; a vision for building cars befitting of only the highest performance crowns. Impossible as it seemed, the landmark Cobra arrived in 1962, establishing a benchmark that holds to this day.

Shelby Cobra Fifty Years is the story of how grand dreams become grand realities, from the prologue about the events that led up to Shelby’s decision to build high performance cars, to the history of the Cobra street and race cars, to the epilogue about the continuation of the Shelby namesake.

If only I had this book during those texting trivia wars with her so long ago. I might have actually won.

Author

Colin Comer, respected authority on collector cars, is Editor-at-Large for Sports Car Market and American Car Collector. He is a Contributing Editor for Road & Track and regularly appears in the New York Times, Business Week, USA Today, and many other respected publications. Comer is also the author of Shelby Mustang Fifty Years. When not writing about cars, he is an avid vintage racer and pilot.

Shelby Cobra Fifty Years is available through Amazon and Motorbooks.

Shelby Cobra Fifty Years Gallery

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Mazda & Toyota Establish Joint-Manufacturing Venture

Mazda & Toyota Establish Joint-Manufacturing Venture Mazda Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Corporation have established a new joint-venture called Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc., or “MTMUS.” The new company will produce vehicles in Huntsville, Alabama starting in 2021 with the goal of increasing production for both automakers. More specifically, the new plant will have the capacity to produce 150,000 units of a forthcoming Mazda crossover and 150,000 units of the Toyota Corolla.
The facility is expected to create up to 4,000 new jobs.
“We hope to make MTMUS a plant that will hold a special place in the heart of the local community for many, many years,” explained Masashi Aihara, Mazda’s Executive Officer who will serve as President of MTMUS. “By combining the best of our technologies and corporate cultures, Mazda and Toyota will not only produce high-quality cars but also create a plant employees will be proud to work at and contribute to the further development of the local economy and the automotive industry.”
Toyota and Mazda are investing $1.6 billion toward the venture with equal funding contributions. In collaboration with the state of Alabama and the city of Huntsville, MTMUS will soon begin land preparation for the new plant, with full-scale construction slated to begin next year.
“The new plant, which will be Toyota’s 11th manufacturing facility in the U.S., not only represents our continuous commitment in this country, but also is a key factor in improving our competitiveness of manufacturing in the U.S.,” said Hironori Kagohashi, Executive General Manager of Toyota and MTMUS’s Executive Vice President. “We are committed to realizing a highly competitive plant and producing vehicles with the best quality for customers by combining Toyota and Mazda’s manufacturing expertise and leveraging the joint venture’s synergies. Based on this competitiveness, we will make every effort to becoming a best-in-town plant that will be loved by our hometown.”
“We hope that cars made at the new plant will enrich the lives of their owners and become much more than just a means of transportation,” Aihara added.
Source: Mazda North American Operations, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.

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Pirelli Showcases “Cyber Car” In Geneva

Pirelli Showcases “Cyber Car” In Geneva Pirelli unveiled something interesting at the 88th Geneva International Motor Show. This is a product with a pretty irritating name that is actually on the verge of being totally cool. The “Cyber Car” and what it does, and is potentially capable of doing, could be monumental in terms of applied data analytics. Essentially what Cyber Car does is apply big data to your tires, thereby allowing you to use that data to optimize performance.
“Hang on a sec,” you ask, “don’t we do this already?”
Data Linguistics
Why yes, car manufacturers do this already, using sensors placed throughout the vehicle and all the internal computers – throttle position sensors, slip angles, amounts of slip in the electronically-controlled diff, wheel spin indicators – to get a holistic picture of what you are asking the car versus what the car is actually doing moment to moment, and then, doing its best to make the driver’s wish come true.
So what’s new here? To answer that, answer this: What’s missing in all the current data acquisition systems? Tires. Tire information is what is missing. Sure, most modern cars have TPMS systems (tire pressure monitor), but what Pirelli has gone and done is put a number of sensors inside the tires themselves. And then they’ve come up with a common data language for the information the tires are generating, moment to moment, while on the move. From there, they seamlessly integrate that data with all the car’s other streams of data into a single, functioning whole.
So what? So there’s sensors inside the tire. What’s the big deal?
Photo: Pirelli.
Information Critical
A tire-embedded sensor can now be fully integrated into existing driver aids to improve performance and efficiency. If you can scoop up tons and tons of data concerning what your tires are going through – and remember, it all comes down to your tires eventually – then transmit that key data to the vehicle, your car can activate systems such as ABS and stability control. The vehicle can alter its setup on the fly for a safer, more comfortable drive, or, if you are at the track, alter the setup to maintain performance.
By accurately mapping the car’s weight, the vehicle’s central control unit can calculate precisely how many miles can be driven before recharging in an EV, for example. Monitoring temperatures from one tire to the next can more fully inform the traction control computer about possible road conditions, corner to corner (e.g. one corner could be colder and therefore prone to breaking traction).
Cyber Car informs the car’s computers about the tire’s vertical load, temperature, and pressure through the automaker’s factory interface, allowing timely intervention if the pressures go all skewwhiff. Tire maintenance becomes easier, thanks to feedback on tread wear and how tires should be seasonally rotated. Pirelli says the Cyber Car can even go so far as to offer bespoke services, such as valet and roadside assistance.
Photo: Pirelli.
(Not) Running On Empty
Think of it this way: What if you could analyze the blood gasses of a long distance runner in the middle of an Olympic event? Further, what if you could grab that data, say blood/oxygen levels, and provide that data through a Fit Bit wearable thing and also a Bluetooth earpiece? What if a runner could know, at a glance, that she’s got a lot of oxygen capacity left, so now’s the time to push that final lap kick a few hundred meters early. Get it?
The primary focus for various digital companies is gathering and manipulating and analyzing data. Amazon suggests products to you, and they’re right 95 percent of the time. Google can search for you and get the correct results at the top of the list. Car companies have been doing this already in certain, almost traditional ways.
Look at Ferrari’s E-Diff differential system. First developed in their Grand Prix cars, the E-Diff uses computers and incoming data streams for differential torque deployment to help the car turn more. And things like this can also be found in traction control systems, all-wheel drive architectures, ABS-as-supplementary-traction-control, and such. Cyber Car just takes that digitalization into a new era.
Future Applications
And the fact that Pirelli has made the data scheme a standard platform, it can be a literal plug-and-play situation, like getting a car with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. It won’t matter if you don’t own an iPhone. When you do, the car’s infotainment system will be ready for it. The new Pirelli Cyber Car system will be on the market by the end of the year. What you do with it will be up to you, your lap times at the track, and your insurance agent.
Tony Borroz has spent his entire life racing antique and sports cars. He is the author of Bricks & Bones: The Endearing Legacy and Nitty-Gritty Phenomenon of The Indy 500, available in paperback or Kindle format. Follow his work on Twitter: @TonyBorroz.
Photos & Source: Pirelli.

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